Yes, Rare wins the best award for the best swag of the showcase by far. I mean how can you beat a Swiss Army wrench with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts logo on it? Somehow the tool seems fitting for the… Continue Reading →

Yes, Rare wins the best award for the best swag of the showcase by far. I mean how can you beat a Swiss Army wrench with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts logo on it?

Somehow the tool seems fitting for the first Banjo-Kazooie game in more than eight years. The third game in the franchise is a departure from the previous titles. Although the bear and bird may look the same, it’s their world that’s different.

Senior designer Shaun Read said they wanted the action-platformer to evolve, and they’ve made steps to do that by introducing more real world physics and redesigning the missions and theme.

The game still has that hub world and different areas like Nutty Acres to explore, but this time, there’s also customizable vehicles. These are cars that players can alter and turn into jet cars and tanks.

For example, in the demo, players can create a car with four wheels, a couple of blocks for a body and an engine. Later in the game, they can find a better engine and change the jalopy into a racer on the spot using a quick menu. Now, with a better engine, the car can access more areas and eventually, players can again stumble on another piece: This one is a propeller.

The part now turns the speedster into a helicopter, which can access more of Nutty Acres. The player can keep flying around and see buoys lying atop a wide wall. Land the helicopter, add the buoys, switch the propeller to the side and now you have yourself a boat to cruise along a nearby lake. It keeps going on and on.

Take all of this into account and the best way to describe the game is a mix of BOOM BLOX’suser-generated content with the sandbox play from Crackdown. As players move through the game, they can find more parts to add on their vehicle, which seems to play a central role in the mission.

In the only quest Rare showed us, Banjo and Kazooie had to collect coconuts at this field, but the problem was that the witch Gruntilda Winkybunion has minions creating havoc in the area. If you try to roll your car in, it’ll get knocked around as you sweep through, rush outside and stop underneath a barrel so that it can collect the coconuts.

Smart players on the other hand can think outside of the box and bring the collection barrel to the coconuts by creating a helicopter and using a sticky-ball mace to carry it to the field. It’s another way to play the game and ingenius moves that Rare wants to reward.

On the multiplayer side, I got to play two games: Sumo, a mode where you try to knock others off a platform (just like a sumo wrestler) and Queen of the Knoll, a mode where you have to find a crown in the world and stay inside it while knocking your foes out.

To help you in this mode, players can create their own cars that may or may not be the best for each event. But it’s up to fans to tinker with the vehicles and create one that fits their needs and styles.

It’s a great concept that fans can get a hold of in the holiday of this year.